at Sun, 30 Nov 2003 16:01:50 GMT in <q25ksvk0u0sio0a59pel7hibs545ib3asa@
4ax.com>, (shipwreck) wrote :

>On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 08:52:30 -0000,
>(Alex Rast) wrote:
>
>>at Sun, 30 Nov 2003 01:49:35 GMT in <pviisv8n7jfrtjk4ugu3vp13qrnuct7767@
>>4ax.com>, (shipwreck) wrote :
>>
>>>If I were to replace 5 oz. of chocolate with sweetened cocoa powder,
>>>how much do I add?
>
>Alex,
>
>Wow, college level chocolate dynamics. Thanks for the info. I'm
>including the recipe here. As you can see, chunks are added. I'm
>really trying to achieve more of a flaky, Devils food type texture.
>The Hazelnut flour I have is indeed flour, not the meal everyone else
>has. A place in Oregon sells it to me. It's light and fluffy.
>
Yes, I know the stuff. A farm here in Washington sells it as well. Looking
at the recipe, I think the idea of it was to have the chocolate not mix in
but rather stay like chocolate chips. If you look at the preparation,
you're folding dry, fluffy ingredients into beaten egg white, creating a
fluffy, low-density mixture a bit like angel food cake. This will make it
even less likely that high-density chocolate chunks will blend at all.

I think the problem, if you're looking to achieve a Devil's food cake
texture, is that you need to dump this recipe altogether and find a new
one. This one isn't designed for the type of texture you have in mind, and
trying to modify it to make it work is the wrong approach, kind of like
trying to convert a lawnmower engine into a chain saw. Devil's food cake is
basically a standard butter cake designed around cocoa. So you need to
start from a recipe that was designed at least along the same lines as a
butter cake from a standpoint of intended result in texture and density.

I can't help but ask: Are you trying to solve a gluten intolerance? I note
that your recipe doesn't include flour, and if you're trying to make a
Devil's food cake, why not simply find a good recipe for it and make it?
It's not necessarily easy to substitute for flour if you must stay away
from it altogether and get the same texture you wanted. If you are stuck
with an intolerance, you should look up sites and recipes designed to adapt
flour recipes to nonflour ingredients.

If you just like the hazelnutty flavour, then start with a good Devil's
food cake recipe, and substitute some portion of the flour with hazelnut
flour, until you're satisfied with the tradeoff between intensity of
flavour and cohesion of the cake (many recipes designed for flour will fall
apart if you take *all* the flour out).

--
Alex Rast

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